Oh, agreed. Tonnages in the game will ALWAYS be higher. I actualy would love to see a sub sim or a flight sim that doesn't give "instant success" by telling you and recording when kills are made. I'd rather have a debriefing screen on RTB when I make claims, and they can be checked vs intel, etc and awarded.
But that's aside from "fear of death." Doctrine also plays a role. Early war, we should be making submerged sonar approaches. We should also be setting the run depth on the fish to maybe 10 feet below the keel. Combined with the 11 feet of deep run we'd not sink ANYTHING. Of course that's at 100% real, no watching the fish. In fact, you should fire then pull the plug to act like a real sub of the period (least early war). If you get a timed explosion (or even close) you'll assume hits. Course in game you'll know that the hits didn't sink if you don't see the kill notice.
As for this with the deck guns... the crew isn't as vulnerable as they should be (I never seem to get dead crew unless a few DDs are landing shells on deck), etc, ad nauseum. The RL data is clear though, the number of sinkings of anythign bigger than a coaster with a DG (including coup de grace) is vanishingly small. The number of claims is not much higher, and still insignificant. So even if you take every claim at its word—including the tonnages which are frequently quite a bit off—it still doesn't amount to a drop of water in the sea.
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